Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The alternative is disengagement; a downward spiral of human misery; a costly welfare process. Of course, keeping people engaged also provides better access and a window of opportunity for welfare organisations and our employment service providers to use their professional judgement. Under the current arrangements, job seekers who have failed to take part in an activity or program miss at least a fortnight’s pay before action is taken. In other words, there is a problem—which may be for any number of reasons—yet, instead of support, the first thing a person would get under the previous regime was a kick in the guts. In many cases, that is goodbye to hope; that is a downward, sometimes irreversible, spiral—often a personal crisis, a mental health decline, a physical health decline.

According to Homelessness Australia, up to 20 per cent of people who underwent an eight-week breach lost their accommodation or were forced to move to less appropriate housing. Let us pause and think about that: 20 per cent of people at the end of eight weeks of loss of payments lost their accommodation and had to go to worse accommodation. How is that good policy? Does this help people to get back to employment? Does it help families in distress? Does it help the children of these people? No. The penalise-first approach costs the individual and the community. It costs us in welfare, it costs us in health and it throws many people over to already overworked charity organisations.

The new compliance arrangements encourage participation and re-engagement as quickly as possible, in stark contrast to the current system. The new arrangements strike the right balance between participation and penalties for those job seekers who do not comply. A key element of the new system is a similar work-like culture to employment cultures. I will finish at this point because my voice is gone.

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